Top Ten Challenges Facing Public Libraries

Public libraries today are at a critical juncture. Approaching the turn of the millennium, we heard much handwringing about whether public libraries would become obsolete and we faced constant questions about how libraries can remain relevant in the age of online information. Nearly 20 years later, libraries have successfully transformed themselves from being chiefly about materials to being community anchors for formal and informal learning, technology access, workforce development, and community engagement.

But while public libraries have reinvented themselves into a key element of social infrastructure, to borrow the term coined by Eric Klinenberg in his book, Palaces for the People (2018), threats to the well-being of the institution remain. From my perspective as a state librarian – and representing purely my considered opinion – following are the areas that seem of most concern to the long-term health and vitality of the public library.

Growing mistrust of government

As a unit of government, typically at the municipal or county level, it should be of concern to public libraries that the percentage of Americans who mistrust government is rising sharply. In 1958, 73 percent of Americans said they trusted the federal government to “do what is right” just about always or most of the time. In 2015, that figure was 19 percent (Pew Research Center 2015 “Beyond Distrust”). This appears to be a trend across demographic and ideological lines even as it shifts along partisan lines depending on who is in power in Washington (Pew Research Center 2017). This dim view of government is particularly characteristic of attitudes toward the federal level, which is damaging to library operations at the federal and state levels and indirectly affects local public libraries through a loss of funding, policy voice, and stature. Is the perception of local government more positive? Possibly, but an underlying concern of several of the trends identified in this article is an overall lack of trust in public institutions.

Currently, the public library is the rare public institution that bucks this trend. Findings of the Pew Research Center’s important study Libraries 2016 (Horrigan 2016), 66 percent of Americans say that closing the local public library would have a major impact on their communities and this percentage was higher among some demographic groups including women and college graduates. I hope it stays that way, but the constant drumbeat of rhetoric about the perniciousness of the so-called “Deep State” threatens to undermine public trust in all levels of government and reduce the perception of public employees – including librarians and library workers – to self-serving bureaucrats among a majority of the public. As managers and workers of public-sector organizations, this trend should strike us as deeply alarming.

Erosion of faith in objective information

The dystopian novel Golden State Winters (2019) by Ben H. Winters imagines a distant future where objective truth is society’s most important value, and the official record is faithfully guarded by – you guessed it – librarians. As the main character observes as he seeks entry in the Hall of the Permanent Record, “These are the custodians of the Record. They are Librarians, and they do not fuck around” (127). Unfortunately, the post-apocalyptic world of Golden State has succeeded an unknown and unknowable past in which truth was so degraded that it fatally undermined the foundations of society, leading to the destruction of the world. In other words, a past that looks distressingly like our present.

Those of us of a certain age can remember when people agreed about basic facts, when science was considered gospel, and we looked up to experts in academia, government, and industry. While research shows that public trust in scientists has remained relatively stable since the 1970s (though only 44 percent of U.S. adults report “a great deal of confidence”) there are deep divides over some issues, such as climate change and food science. Meanwhile, by the same survey, only 37 percent of U.S. adults report that they have a great deal of confidence in medicine and only 13 percent have confidence in the press (Funk and Kennedy 2019). The Knight Foundation (2018) has documented how the question of confidence in the media is particularly troubling as significant portions of the public mistrust the news they get and increasingly turn to non-objective sources of information.

This trend is troubling because it undermines what we thought would always be regarded as authoritative sources of information and undermines the ability of people to make decisions about their lives, families, and communities. And while the public seems to continue to have a high level of trust in the authenticity of information from libraries, I worry that just as we have seen confidence in the reliability of information from other sources erode, the public could lose faith in the authenticity of information from the library, undermining one of the most important pillars of the library’s value to society.

The decline in civility and civic engagement

An inevitable consequence of the loss of faith in government, public institutions, and objective information is the loss of civic engagement, measured by such indicators as volunteerism and lack of participation in civic life, including voting. In 2013, only 36 percent of American adults were involved in civic institutions, a three percent drop in only two years (Megan 2015).

Libraries can and should be an antidote to polarization and social disintegration. As Eric Klinenberg writes, “Building places where all kinds of people can gather is the best way to repair the fractured societies we live in today” (Klinenberg 2018, 11). He goes on to add, “libraries are among the most critical forms of social infrastructure that we have” (32). But what happens when the overall loss of faith in government and public institutions takes greater root at the local levels of government? I fear that the effect will be a loss of engagement with civic institutions like the library, including an increasing fear of interacting with each other in a public space, and a loss of interest in or time for volunteering at the library.

In the city where I live, I hear parents say they are afraid to take their children to the beautiful new Austin Public Library because they are troubled by all the homeless people. This seems to me an example of the compounding of one problem with several others. As the eroding middle class leads inevitably to more homelessness, and a lack of other forms of social infrastructure sends the homeless into libraries, people respond by withdrawing from engagement in public spaces, leading to a worsening of all of the above. My usual response to such parents is to point out the opportunity to use the situation as a teachable moment, but that sometimes seems like a tough argument to sell.

The disappearing middle class

Another worrisome trend is growing income disparity and the disappearance of the middle class. You might not readily see why this is a matter of concern to library work specifically. But recall for a moment the foundational history of the public library, which has always been an institution rooted squarely in the aspirations of the middle class. Andrew Carnegie, who coined the phrase, “palaces for the people,” believed that the potential power of the public library was not for the rich, but for the striving middle classes who sought to pull themselves from humble means to achieve their potential through self-education, cultural enrichment, and civic engagement. Libraries can and do serve those in poverty, but as their needs grow and as safety nets are diminished, the burden that falls to libraries may overwhelm the library’s capacity to respond.

Since 1970, the proportion of the population that is considered middle class has declined dramatically. In a 2015 report entitled “The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground,” Pew demonstrated that middle-income Americans are no longer in the majority and that between 1970 and 2014, the aggregate income going to upper-income households increased from 29 to 49 percent. The share of adults living in middle-income households is also falling.

For an institution built on the aspirations of the middle class, this is a troubling trend, but it also has other implications. A related problem, for example, is the unaffordability of many urban areas, which makes it harder to recruit and retain qualified library workers for the wages that libraries can afford to pay. High costs for property and construction in urban areas could also make building, remodeling, or maintaining buildings prohibitively expensive for some cities. Income inequality will also drive other problems that are felt very acutely at the public library, such as homelessness. In her bestseller about the Los Angeles Public Library fire of 1986, The Library Book (2018), Susan Orlean observed of homelessness, “Many librarians have told me that they consider this the defining question facing libraries right now” (73). This situation seems likely to become more challenging as safety nets for mental health, and other social services are impacted and perhaps lose crucial funding.

Tax revolt and the tyranny of ROI

As government has faced an increasingly urgent tax revolt that dates at least to 1985 with the founding of the Americans for Tax Reform, coupled with an overall distrust of government (see trend number one above), libraries, like all aspects of the public sector, have had to find creative ways justify their existence. This is not a bad thing in itself. Accountability is important, and libraries and other public sector services should be accountable to taxpayers. For too long library advocates relied on arguments of intrinsic social good to win the day. Libraries stand up well to the scrutiny. For the meager amounts that libraries generally receive, they can demonstrate significant return on investment. There have been many ROI studies that have proved this point, including our own conducted in Texas in 2012 and refreshed in 2017. Our study, conducted by the Bureau of Business Research at the University of Texas (2017), demonstrates that for every dollar invested in library services, communities see a return of at least $4.64, and that is a conservative estimate.

The only problem with this is that such analyses leave out some of the most important work that public libraries do for society. How can an economic development study return a dollar value on the role it plays in teaching children to read, in keeping kids focused on learning during the summer months, on providing a safe space for teenagers to come together in positive after-school interaction, or in providing a lifeline of reading and information for a senior adult? ROI studies can and do identify the ways in which libraries create sustainable communities by teaching STEM skills in maker spaces, or helping people find jobs and start businesses. But what of projects such as the Dallas Public Library’s homeless initiative, the El Paso Public Library’s community gardening project, or the Plano Public Library’s community arts initiatives? Because these services are more resistant to an ROI analysis, do they not matter? Should we stop circulating fiction altogether because reading for personal enjoyment is a luxury that cannot be monetized? Should we no longer offer preschool story hours because we cannot put a price tag on the value of connecting children with books at an early age? Most library advocates would agree that such services are core to our mission, but we have not done an effective enough job yet of articulating value beyond ROI.

The decline of attention span

In her intriguing book, Bored and Brilliant (2017), technology writer and podcast host Manoush Zomorodi (2017) writes at length about the effect that smart phones and other devices have on our ability to concentrate. Zomorodi makes a compelling case that smart phones not only cause us to lose our ability to focus on longer pieces of information, they interrupt the very valuable experience of being bored. She points to research that indicates that letting our minds wander leads to creative thinking and problem solving. We tend to use smart phones to ever avoid having such down moments. Young people are particularly prone to addictive behavior with gadget use. In a 2015 study, 77 percent of people aged 18 to 24 responded that when they were bored, they were likely to reach for their phones (Borreli 2015).

Some of us might think this behavior has a humorous side, especially when we notice so many people around us staring at smartphones all day, sometimes even walking into us on the sidewalk while engrossed. But public librarians should find the implications real and troubling. Public libraries have traditionally been about the deeper dive, the thoughtful reflection. The often-noted serendipity of wandering through the stacks may be a pleasure that we have lost in our need to be constantly and instantly gratified. People may recognize the value of libraries, but how much will they actually use libraries once they lose the capacity for close reading and slow thinking? This seems to me to lead inevitably to…

The decline in reading

In 2004, a startling report from the National Endowment for the Arts titled Reading at Risk documented the sharp decline in literary reading between 1982 and 2002. Then-NEA chairman poet Dana Gioia set out to tour the country talking about his concerns about this trend. In the introduction to the report, Gioia writes, “More than reading is at stake. As this report unambiguously demonstrates, readers play a more active and involved role in their communities. The decline in reading, therefore, parallels a larger retreat from participation in civic and cultural life” (Bradshaw and Nichols 2004, vii).

Has the situation improved in the last 15 years? No, on the contrary, we continue to lose readers. The NEA has continued to document the rates of U.S. adults who are reading. In the most recent report, the percent of adults who read any book during 2017 declined by 1.9 percent to 52.7 percent of the population. The only sign of hope is that after many years of decline, the percent of adults who read a book of poetry or plays actually increased – to 11.7 percent for poetry and 3.7 percent for plays! (NEA 2018).

While book checkouts are only one of several functions of the public library, books, book-reading, book-related programming, and literacy services continue to be a core function of the public library. Even if these were not such important core services, Dana Gioia’s comments about the relationship of reading to social cohesion and civic engagement point us to some of the reasons why the concern about the decline in reading should be a major concern to public libraries.

Lack of diversity

According to figures from the American Library Association, 86.7 percent of ALA members self-identify as white, 4.4 percent as African American, and as a subtotal of the whole, 4.7 percent as “Hispanic or Latino” (ALA 2017). In 2006, ALA also released a report on diversity in the profession entitled “Diversity Counts” which was updated in 2007 and again in 2012, analyzing data from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Center for Education Statistics. The data indicate that of all credentialed librarians, 85.2 percent are white, 5 percent are African American, and 4.8 percent are Latino (ALA 2012).

These numbers are of concern and they do not appear to be improving. For these reasons, ALA has set increased diversity in the profession as a strategic priority of the association. That is entirely appropriate because if the profession cannot attract a diverse workforce, especially at the professional and managerial levels, public libraries will become increasingly out of touch with the needs of their communities and non-responsive to societal and cultural realities. In Texas, as in other states, the percentages of non-white segments of the population are growing at a much faster rate than whites. For the public library to remain a vital and valued institution, we need library staffs that more closely mirror the demographic make-up of their communities.

I am concerned that even if there is a will for diversity hiring, the pool of applicants may not be available, especially MLS candidates. Creative and proactive strategies are going to have to be pursued if we are truly committed to building more diverse staffs.

Lack of recognition

While I cannot point to statistics to bear this out, I have worked in libraries for over 35 years and I have consistently seen the evidence of a lack of respect for librarians in many settings. The lack of regard for the library and what it offers to a community can be seen in the ongoing low levels of funding for public library service. It is evident in the President’s zero-funding the IMLS every budget cycle. It is evident in the ways that public librarians are often left out of management teams of cities, or off crucial city and county commissions such as those exploring broadband, economic development or workforce. It is evident in the surprised looks I inevitably received when, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in 2017, I would tell leaders from other sectors that the Federal Emergency Management Agency officially recognizes libraries as essential services (FEMA 2018, 76). Nevertheless, I watched with awe as the Houston Public Library under the direction of Dr. Rhea Lawson, and with support from the Aspen Institute, became the first agency in Houston to convene dozens of local and regional organizations in a post-Harvey discussion of the disaster and lessons learned.

I look forward to the day when libraries are fully recognized for the unique and irreplaceable service they provide to their cities and counties. The public recognizes this: The Pew Libraries 2016 study found that 66 percent of Americans said that closing their public library would have a major impact on them personally or their family (Horrigan 2016). I hope one day we can say a similar percentage of city and county leaders agree.

The struggle of library education

I sat in a meeting over 15 years ago where a revered and now deceased library school faculty member declared that “library education is dead.” I was shocked at the time because I could not see how that was true as I was then the administrator of a library system with over 30 branches serving over a million people in southern California and we were constantly hiring MLS candidates. By that time, several library schools had been discontinued and we were seeing the consolidation of students in large programs in various parts of the country and a near universal trend toward fully online or hybrid programs. These years later, however, library education is far from dead and needed now more than ever.

I watched the work of two programs in California and I see the efforts of our three campuses in Texas and from my perspective it seems some of these programs tend to lean heavily toward information management, which is great for certain aspects of the profession. Several of our records management professionals came to us from these programs and their training is top notch. But I worry that library school does not always provide the full range of skills needed for contemporary public library work. Is there adequate emphasis on community engagement, political advocacy, and marketing services through segmentation analysis? Are the programs sufficiently grounded in principles of social justice? Do students understand the potential impact of the public library? Are they taught to be innovators and change agents? Are students prepared for real-world challenges while also receiving grounding in professional ethics and values? It seems vitally important that future professional librarians be prepared to lead libraries that are confronting the effects of the broad social challenges discussed above such as authenticity of information, the erosion of public trust in institutions, and income inequality.

I know many very talented library school faculty so I have faith in the ability of individual teachers to the extent they can develop their own content. But I worry about programs that have to keep enrollment numbers high to generate their own income and what sacrifices such programs make to be competitive with other departments.

It is critical that library schools recruit diverse students and train them to deal with the challenges of running and managing their library programs in ways that remain competitive and viable.

Conclusion

At the outset of this article, I said public libraries are at a critical juncture. The continuing success of the institution lies in how we manage through these challenges. These larger social trends are not within our control, but how we respond is. Despite these difficulties, the time has never been better to be a public library director or staff person. We have weathered the worst of the threats against us and so long as we maintain our integrity, determination, and commitment to our professional mission and values, I believe the public library will endure and thrive long into the future.

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Mark Smith

Mark Smith has over 35 years of experience in the library field in three states and in a variety of library settings. Since November 2013, Mark has served his home state of Texas as Director and State Librarian of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Mark holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Masters in Library Science from the University of Texas at Austin and is the author of several books and articles about various library topics.